Leader, You're Not Pizza!
“You can’t please everyone. You’re not pizza.†If you spend any time at all on the interwebs, I’m sure you’ve seen that meme at some point. I saw it a few weeks ago and got a good chuckle as I thought about it.
As a leader, you will be criticized. Even the most dedicated and proven leaders are criticized at times. So how do we deal with criticism as leaders?
First, some criticism is helpful and comes from a place that is focused on improvement. Improvement in process, service, communication, and on an on. One way of driving improvement is by critiquing past performance and failures. You should welcome this type of objective criticism, learn from it, and use it to grow and improve.
Other criticism is meant to tear down. Motives vary, but I’m sure you’ve seen or been subjected to criticism that just didn’t make any sense, no matter how hard you tried to do something constructive with it.
If you are in a leadership position, it’s your responsibility to discern between the two. Your job is to stay focused on the mission and vision of the organization. As my wife and I often remind each other about critical input, ‘take what you can use and leave the rest behindâ€.
Somebody has to lead toward the goal. And that, my friend, is your responsibility. You may have flack exploding all around you, but you stay focused on the destination. And lead toward it.
I was asked this past weekend by a young(er) gentleman, a founding entrepreneur with a relatively new company, “Mitch, with all the competing demands for your time, what do you do?†After thinking about it for a few days, I think this sums it up... My desire is to lead toward the vision. And the tasks and object of my focus required to do that are different almost every single day.
So, if you are in a position of responsibility, lead. And if you aspire to a position of greater responsibility, use your time now to tune into the mission and vision of the organization, focus on how you can help move the ball in that direction, and exercise your discernment skills for the two types of criticism. Use the constructive criticism as motivation to change and leave the rest behind.
Mitch
Aviation Operations Specialist | Agent of Aviation Education & Outreach | Aircraft Mx Volunteer
5 å¹´Thank you, Sir. I'll save this for when the position comes...and for now, I'll use it in my Project Management class :-).
Partner at Morphic Development
6 å¹´Mitch?- there's plenty of irony on the road to improvement it seems. In my experience, criticism (constructive and destructive) increases as you get closer to achieving the goal. Constructive criticism could continuously present itself in people's endless pursuit of perfection while destructive criticism is typically rooted in people's natural resistance to change. The irony: there would be nothing to criticize without a leader leading towards an improved vision.
Bringing the beauty of God's wonderful Earth to YOUR world!
6 å¹´You aren't Chocolate, either.